Millions of men, women, and children suffer fatal diseases and disorders every year as a result of contaminated drinking water. In addition to the negative health effects of contaminated water, African people, mainly women and children, experience life altering disabilities and abhorrent time commitments as a result of subpar water transportation conditions and lack of proximity to a water source. In developing countries, women and children participate in strenuous, traditional methods of water carrying on a daily basis. Arduous methods of transporting water that have been used include carrying water in 20 liter buckets balanced on the head of the carrier.
There have been technologies and methods that have a made efforts to address both water purification and transportation problems. For example, LifeStraw® is a portable water purification unit in the form of a tubular housing with a length of less than 50 cm and a width of less than 80 mm, the tubular housing having a first opening at a first end for entrance of water into the tubular housing and a mouthpiece at an opposite end for suctioning water through the tubular housing. LifeStraw® uses a 0.2 micron filter to remove microorganisms within the housing. Membranes within the filter trap pathogens and allow pure water to flow through freely. LifeStraw® is able to remove 99.99% of bacteria, including debris; however, it only has the capacity to filter 264 gallons (approximately 1 year of water). And the micron filtration system of LifeStraw® is unable to remove chemicals that are found in underlying bedrock.
Unlike the filters used in the Lifestraw®, activated carbon is another method of removing chemical pollutants. Activated carbon is used to purify liquids and gases in a variety of applications, including municipal drinking water, food and beverage processing. It is also used for odor removal, industrial pollution control, and in point-of-use filters in the home. Activated carbon purifies water through physical absorption. The large internal surface area of carbon has several attractive forces that work to attract other molecules. These forces manifest in a similar manner as gravitational force. Contaminants in water are adsorbed (or adhered) to the surface of carbon from a solution as a result of differences in adsorbate concentration in the solution and in the carbon pores. But Lifestraw® is not useful for transporting water.
In contrast to water purification, there are more limited solutions for water transportation. The Hippo Roller®, which is essentially a rolling vessel, is a widely accepted one. The Hippo Roller® is a plastic barrel that is crafted from polyethylene. It is a barrel-shaped container, with a large screw-cap and clip-on steel handle, designed to transport 90 liters of water with ease.
The 90 liters that the Hippo Roller® is able to transport is 5 times more than the typical bucket load. The design allows for the vessel to be submerged for water collection, sealed, and rolled to the point of consumption. In addition, the barrel has an average lifespan of 5-7 years. The model is designed to alleviate the burden and negative health effects of manually lifting water. Hippo Roller®, and other rolling vessel models, provide alternative, less strenuous methods for transporting water. But the Hippo Roller® does not purify water.
There have been some efforts made to combine water transport and cleansing or purification functions in one apparatus. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 9,416,025 describes a water treatment and conveyance apparatus that combines both functions, but it has its drawbacks in that it describes adding a cleansing chemical, such as a chlorine tablet to sterilize the water while in transit and it also does not make any use of the kinetic energy generated during transport.
There are combined transport and purification systems that do use kinetic energy from transport and do not rely upon adding cleansing chemicals. For example, EP 2415717 describes a combined transport and cleaning apparatus that does make use of kinetic energy in including combining filtration and treatment with ultraviolet light for cleaning and does not use cleansing chemicals, but it too has its drawbacks in that it describes a design using two compartments, a raw water compartment and a clean water compartment, and does not make optimum use of the kinetic energy from transport. But there is still a need for improved apparatuses, methods, and systems that can combine transportation and purification, without chemicals, that make improved use of the kinetic energy from transport.